


Animal

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Established Relationship, Feral Behavior, Feral Derek, Gen, Kidnapped Derek, M/M, Mild Gore, POV Derek, POV Stiles, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-18 22:46:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1445605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They call him Derek.</p><p>The only one that calls him anything different is the man caught in between the planes of humanity and magic. He gestures to him when the human and the alpha are standing in the room and calls him Feral.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> just fyi: this is an established relationship, but you won't see it in the first chapter because of derek's mental state

He does not know his name anymore.

Sometimes, when he sleeps, he thinks he can hear it. But it is never more than a whisper that comes from bleeding, broken faces and he does not like to dream about those things. They hurt that part of him inside that is untouchable, but also the most vulnerable. It is a frustrating pain, because it is a pain his body does not heal from, and there is nothing he can attack to make it leave unless he sinks his claws into his own throat.

Besides, he does not need a name. Names are just clumsy markers that the people that enter his territory use among themselves. They are weak, relying on the thunder sticks in their hands to carve holes into his body. He does not wish to have a name if it means that he is mimicking the weak.

Whenever he hears them coming, he hopes that they have abandoned their thunder sticks and those smaller twigs that make his body freeze even when he wants nothing more than to rip their guts open and dig around in their insides. They never do, though, but that does not stop him from trying. They are intruders in the small cage that he calls his home. He takes their presence as a challenge, and their insistence on approaching him with things that cause him pain a threat. 

He does not know what day it is (the days of the week are a concept he lost when they first broke him) when they come after leaving him for so long that his stomach never stops growling. He feels weak, and he wants to curl up in a corner to die, but his body will not allow him to succumb to something as simple as hunger, and his instincts will not allow him to lie like a docile animal when he hears them approaching.

Usually, their numbers are large, but this time he can only hear two footsteps approaching. He can smell the food they carry, dead and rotting, but he is not picky. Saliva gathers in his mouth, drips down his long canines as he rises to all fours and begins to snarl his customary warning. 

He may not be able to recognize the noises coming from their mouths, but he can tell from their sharp movements and the downward slopes of their mouths that they are angry. The one closest to him tosses the carcass his way, and abandons his grip on his gun in favor of turning to yell at his companion. 

His lips curl back from his teeth and he gives them no further warning before he moves, faster than either of them can follow. He sinks his teeth into the other’s arm, reaching out with his claws to tear into whatever skin he can reach, and it does not take much for the human to fall. His companion cries out, fleeing while he stands over the human that screams on the ground beneath him. 

The screaming annoys him. It is a loud, piercing noise and he abandons the idea of keeping the human as a plaything, because no plaything is worth the throbbing in his head. The human’s scream cuts off, transforms into a sickening gurgling noise, as soon as his claws cut through the human’s throat. He watches as blood spurts out of the wound before he drags the carcass into his corner, and begins to eat. 

___

They return quicker than usual this time and there are enough of them that he knows he cannot attempt to fight, but that does not stop him from roaring as soon as they swing the door open. Their thunder sticks silence him, violent bursts that end with horrible pain in every spot of his body and he claws at his own skin, because it does not usually hurt this much. It does not take him long to pull one of the small, strange objects from the wound, but his skin does not heal around it as usual. Instead, his veins around the area begin to turn black, and his snarling cuts off into a confused whimper.

When he finally remembers to look up at the intruders, it is only because one of them has stepped closer. Closer than they have ever dared to come before. Their own face is twisted into a snarl and he begins to echo it with one of his own, but before he can reach out to try claw them, they raise the thunder stick in their hands and bring it down upon his head.

He would kill them for it, but his world goes black.

___

Dreams are very odd things.

His mind lies to him whenever he closes his eyes, conjures up a world that is beyond his comprehension so if he was capable of greater thought, he would ponder how his mind could even imagine something that was beyond him. Unfortunately, greater thought left him when the humans sent so much electricity through his body that his mind splintered, and his body was left racing to heal something that wished to remain broken.  
___

They have done this to him before. Wrapped metal around his limbs so he is spread out on a wall, but it has been a long time since they dared to. All he can remember of the last time is that it hurt. But he tries to avoid those memories, because remembering the pain makes him want to run, so far and so fast that they can not catch him, although the last time he tried running, the thunder sticks had bit at his legs so many times that he could not see his skin beneath his own blood. 

They make a lot of noise, this time. He growls whenever they come close, but they just laugh and press the small twigs into his side until his throat cuts off on making the sound and he tries to arch away from the pain, but his body refuses to cooperate. 

The blackness in his veins only grows darker, traveling further with every heartbeat.

He can smell his own flesh rotting.

___

Sometimes, when they approach, they come with small knives that they flick across his skin. Those marks do not heal either. He eventually abandons growling in favor of whining continuously in the back of his throat. He feels like a pup when he does, a child that does nothing more than complain, but he does not care anymore.

He just wants to go to sleep.

He can feel the blackness pressing in around him, but every time he tries to close his eyes someone smacks him across the face and he opens them with a roar.

Eventually, his throat grows sore, and he falls silent.

The humans make delighted sounds and grow bolder when they approach him. Their knives are not so little, the twigs not so much twigs but branches. He prefers the knives to the branches. The knives are just quick pain, but the branches...oh, they are so much worse. The third time they use one, he cannot help it, and he relieves himself in front of them all. 

___

He has done it before, pissed in the corner while they entered his territory, making sure to keep his eyes on them. 

Earlier on, he would sometimes piss on them directly, but the slight thrill he got at their humiliation was not worth the retribution they would seek, so he stuck to his corners. The corners were safe. They got his point across and they did not beat him until he had to lie with his eyes swollen shut, fangs digging into his lips.  
___

Humiliation is hot in his stomach, because this is not a show of defiance.

This is weakness.

He closes his eyes and does not open them again, even when the slaps to his face turn into punches that make him spit out teeth.  
___

He wishes he could kill them all.  
___

He only opens his eyes again because he can smell them. His nostrils flare as he takes in their scents, and while there is a part of him that thinks these new humans might not be full of cruel touches and terrible laughs, he growls anyway. His trust of humans disappeared the first time they threw him in a cage, rattling the bars with sticks until he was forced to curl into himself, hands plastered against his ears.

The humans, however, are not alone. His growling increases when he smells his own kind and he is torn, because he remembers pack. 

Pack was full of wolves that were kind. They did not let him go hungry, or let him curl up in the darkest parts of his mind, but he can also remember wolves that stabbed him through with metal bars until his blood rose up in his own mouth.

It takes awhile, but eventually he registers the fact that, while these scents are new to this place, they are familiar to him. Confusion makes him fall quiet. The only images he can conjure of those who the scents belong to are shadowy, as if he is looking at them from far away with a blanket cast over his eyes. 

He takes a moment to look at the humans before him, all gathered around a table. He thinks they are deciding how to break him. They are unaware of the quiet figures slinking into the room and he wonders how their kind managed to survive this long.

One of the figures looks at him with eyes that glow red. He does not remember the wolf, but that deeper part of himself that always seems to know makes him turn his neck in submission, whining, because that is his alpha. The movement makes the humans look up at him and he can smell their confusion, and he can see the moment they realize something terrible is about to happen. 

They all pick up things to hurt, turning to face the doors, and that is it.

The alpha speaks, one simple word that he wishes he could understand, and the other wolves that he had scented remove themselves from their hiding spots. The one with blue eyes looks at him for a moment before they all attack. 

It is beautiful, he thinks.

The humans (the ones that had existed only to hurt him) fall beneath sharp claws and fangs. Those that manage to avoid the wolves are fallen by a girl that is not human, but he cannot place her scent in his mind. A human with a bat catches those that she misses, bringing the bad humans down with sharp blows, allowing them to be finished off by the wolf with the blue eyes.

When the fight is over, and the scent of blood is sickeningly thick in the air, they all look at him. He cannot read their expressions and he finds himself snarling, struggling against the metal until the alpha roars. He flashes his eyes in response, turning his head again. He trembles when the alpha approaches with the human by his side, reaching out. He thinks that he might be killed, that he did something wrong, but the alpha breaks him free from his bonds instead.

He falls to the ground and immediately tries to rise into his usual four legged crouch, but his limbs will not cooperate. He ends up vomiting black on the ground instead and suddenly they are all around him. He snarls again, shaking when hands reach out to touch, but their hands do not hurt. They make him feel better and relief courses through him as some of the pain is lessened.

They all make noises among themselves.

He feels too sleepy to fight, so he lets them.

___

They call him Derek while they carry him out of the building into a blue car that the human drives, knuckles turning white from how hard he grips the steering wheel.

They call him Derek when they bring him to a building that smells of ancient magic and a man comes out to greet them, voice calm but pulse beating so fast that he would know the man (no, not a man; something else, something in between) was worried, even if he could not smell it.

The alpha calls him Derek again after they lie him out on a table and the man shoves ash into the bites from the thunder sticks, just before his eyes close and he falls asleep.

___

The only one that calls him anything different is the man caught in between the planes of humanity and magic. He gestures to him when the human and the alpha are standing in the room and calls him Feral.

He bares his teeth at the man, because even if he does not understand the meaning of the name, he knows it does not suit him.  
___

He actually thinks Derek sounds dumber than Feral, but Derek makes something inside of him stir. It’s as if they are calling to something that has been lying in the dark corners of his mind, broken and ashamed. 

Whenever that part of him stirs, he is caught between irritation and joy. 

He feels confused.  
___

They call the alpha Scott.

The human is Stiles.

The girl with the sword whose scent he still cannot place is Kira.

The wolf with the golden eyes is Isaac.

The other girl that looks at him with a mixture of pity and distaste is Lydia.

He never sees the wolf with the blue eyes again, but that is fine.

He does not trust any of them.  
___

They are all young, much younger than he thought they were when they first broke him down from the wall, and he does not understand why he recognizes the boy alpha as his leader. He is much older, much stronger. He should be leading the group, instead of allowing someone that still smells too much of high school to do it, but when he tries to challenge the boy alpha he feels that other part of him grow agitated.

The boy alpha watches him with sad eyes when he slinks into the corner, curling up away from the world with his hands over his ears.

“Derek,” is all the boy alpha Scott says before he leaves, but he smells of sadness, and that says more than any jumble of words.  
___

The room he is in now has a window and he can track the progression of the sun. Time is still, for the most part, something that is beyond him but he has begun to understand night and day again. 

It is the tenth night of his stay when the wolf lets himself into the room. 

“Derek,” the wolf -Isaac- says, holding one hand out to him. 

He looks at it with mistrust in his eyes, baring his teeth. He does not like them getting too close. They do not carry thundersticks or twigs that make his body betray him, so they cannot hurt him if he growls enough that they do not dare to step closer.

But this boy...this boy is an idiot. 

He lowers the pitch of his growl, pulling himself up higher when Isaac steps closer, until he is standing. The fact that he can actually balance himself on his hind legs like the others catches him off guard and the noise cuts off.

When he remembers the boy, it is only because Isaac slowly sets one hand on his shoulder. He flinches away from the touch and drops back down to all fours, but he does not turn away. 

There is something about this idiot that he likes and it makes that other part of himself very happy to have the boy so close, so he does his best to stay still when Isaac reaches for him again.

“You have to come back to us, Derek. They’re giving up. They won’t say it, but they’re giving up,” Isaac whispers and he does not understand any of the words, but it makes the other part of him howl with pain and he does not like that. He does not like anyone that makes any part of himself hurt, even if it is the part of his mind that confuses him and keeps him awake at night.

Isaac barely cries out when he sinks his fangs into the boy’s hand. He just cradles his hand to his chest, watches it stitch itself together slowly before he leaves.

He does not say goodbye.

Inside his mind, the hurt part of himself howls.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my desktop is complete shit, but it's the computer i prefer to write and upload fic on because i can see the screen without leaning all the way forward.
> 
> it took me at least ten tries to upload this chapter, though, and then i had to run to my laptop to reformat it because my desktop didn't do it so i think i might be pushing that computer down the hill.

Stiles finds Derek by chance.

Or, more accurately, Stiles gets lost driving on a road through the woods with Isaac, and it’s in the middle of loudly complaining about how terrible he is at directions that Isaac pauses, nostrils flaring as he breathes in deep.

“What? Are you gonna complain about the way my car smells next cause I’m warning you now, if you start, I’m pushing your wolfy ass out the door,” Stiles grumbles and Isaac looks at him with that wide eyed expression everyone has when they have discovered something they weren’t expecting.

“I can smell him.”

“Smell who?” Stiles asks, even though he’s pretty sure he already knows, because there’s only one person that their little ragtag group has been looking for.

“Derek. He was here, Stiles. I can find him. Stop the fucking car,” Isaac snaps and Stiles is just about to do so when Isaac shoves the door open anyway, carrying out Stiles’ earlier threat all by himself.

Stiles slams on the brakes in the middle of the road. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he hisses, watching as Isaac recovers from his ungraceful fall and takes off into the woods. “You can’t just go get him on your own, dumbass!” Stiles yells in frustration, but he’s not actually mad at Isaac. If he could keep up with the other teen, he would be running too.

Unfortunately, he cannot keep up, and as Isaac kindly pointed out, he’s terrible with directions so he’s not about to go stumbling around in the woods trying to catch up. Instead, he pulls out his phone and does the most sensible thing he can.

He calls Scott.

___

Derek had gone missing the night after a pack meeting at Scott’s. They had been trying to decide what to do about an omega that had settled down in the preserve, not too far from the Hale house, which was a pretty ballsy move, in Stiles’ opinion. The entire group had been in agreement about confronting the omega, in hopes that they could get it to move on without resorting to having to fighting it, but Scott had nixed the idea of Derek coming along.

“It’s his family’s land, Stiles, and some weirdo is squatting on it. He barely even tolerates having us over at his house, can you imagine what’ll happen if the omega doesn’t agree to move on?” Scott had asked Stiles after the meeting while he paced back and forth in his bedroom.

Stiles saw his point, but Derek had not.

___

For the first three days after Derek stormed out of Scott’s house, slamming the door behind him so hard that a window shattered, they had all thought that the ignored calls and texts were just Derek’s version of a tantrum.

He should have realized that something was wrong when Derek failed to answer his calls even after he left increasingly panicked voicemails. Derek may have been enough of an ass to let the rest of the pack worry themselves sick over him, but he wasn’t cruel enough to do it to Stiles.

___

Kira was the one that stopped by the loft with Stiles. She insisted on coming, because Derek was her friend, too, and she just wanted to make sure he was alive before he and Stiles had angry make up sex that lasted the entire weekend.

He knew something was wrong as soon as they approached the loft, only to see the door was left partially open, but he let himself pretend that maybe, just this once, Derek had forgotten to check and recheck and triple check the locks after he got in.

He could not, however, try to find any other explanation for the broken furniture and blood stains on the floor.

___

Scott tackles Isaac just outside of the old building, wrestling with him until he is forced to flash his eyes and let out a roar that even has Stiles trembling.

“We will not rush in without a plan,” Scott snarls, holding Isaac on the ground even though the beta has ceased his struggling. “You will be killed if you do. I’m not going to let them kill you.”

“They could kill him, Scott, while we try to make up a plan,” Isaac says, but Stiles can tell he isn’t trying to argue. There’s too much truth to Scott’s words to argue.

Derek may not be the greatest fighter, but for someone (or a group of someones) to take him and hold him for three months meant that they had to be a little smart. There would be people posted within the building, traps that would kill them before they even had a chance.

“We’ll call everyone,” Stiles suggests, even though there are parts of him that just wants to plow forward, ignoring the dangers that undoubtedly lie ahead. “We’ll go back to Scott’s and we’ll figure something out,” he adds, ignoring the little voice in the back of his mind that keeps asking what they will do if they can’t figure it out.

He has gone months without giving up. He’s not about to start now.

___

They do manage to come up with a plan.

Said plan being, move very quickly and very silently and try not to get yourself killed.

Stiles thinks it’s a brilliant plan.

Lydia calls him an idiot, but whatever. It’s not like she managed to come up with anything better.

Besides, Stiles doesn’t have the patience to try and come up with anything better. He knows hunters. He has seen them kill wolves for no reason other than they dared to exist, and while every part of himself wants to pretend that Derek is okay, he knows that it’s the farthest from the truth.

If Derek isn’t dead yet, the hunters will have ensured that he is close to it, and Stiles cannot let him live like that anymore.

___

He had read up on a lot after his possession.

Lydia spent hours in his room with him, flipping through the bestiary and reading whatever they could find on the internet. They had been hungry for the ability to understand, frantically trying to piece together the supernatural world they now existed in, and it was a task that kept him from thinking too much about all the things the nogitsune had done while it had control of his body.

Nothing, however, could have prepared him for this.

___

They do not kill, not when there are other options, but there is no discussion about these hunters. He takes more joy than he cares to admit in the sound his bat makes when it connects with the hunters that come by him. The blood that begins to cover the metal of his weapon of choice does not disgust him, as it usually did. He considers it payback, for the blood he could see on Derek’s body, even from this far away.

And Derek….oh, God.

He cannot stop himself from stepping closer, and he is barely aware of Scott at his side. His breath catches in his throat as he takes in the wounds all over Derek’s body. It is only when he really looks at Derek’s face that he realizes there is no recognition in the man’s eyes. He snarls at them like a cornered dog and Stiles makes a small movement to reach out, but Scott blocks him.

“Let me. You can’t risk it, not when he’s like this,” Scott whispers before turning back to Derek.

It hurts more than he ever imagined it could to watch as Scott reaches out, moving as slowly as possible, as if he was reaching out to an animal.

 **** _But that’s what he is right now, isn’t he?_ Stiles thinks and immediately hates himself for it, but it’s the truth.

This is not a man hanging before him. This is not Derek. This is someone that has been tortured until they broke and were reduced to trembling with their teeth bared in a constant snarl.

He thinks he’s going to be sick, but then Scott releases the chains holding Derek up, and there is no time to be sick when he watches Derek try to stand, only to fall over, vomiting up black and, God, he’s never wanted to see that again.

“Fuck,” Isaac curses, stepping closer, but slowly. Too damn slow.

“He can’t hurt you right now, he’s barely conscious,” Stiles snaps.

“Stiles,” Scott says warningly.

He runs his hands through his hair. “I’ll go start the jeep. You guys carry him,” he mutters, before fleeing.

___

As soon as he is outside of the building that smells like blood and death and rot and sadness (and isn’t that weird, how sadness can have a smell if there is enough of it, even to a human’s nose?), he doubles over and vomits up the remains of his dinner.

“Stiles, are you okay?” Kira asks from behind him and fuck, he didn’t know they had come out so fast.

For the sake of his pride, he decides to ignore her, and instead gestures towards the jeep.

“Don’t wait around. Get him inside,” Stiles says, hurrying over to the driver’s side.

“Take him to Deaton’s,” Scott says from the back and Stiles wants to say “no shit” because where the fuck else would he go? It’s not like the doctors at the hospital are equipped to handle a feral werewolf. He keeps his mouth shut, though, because he knows himself well enough to know that he’ll feel like an ass for anything he says right now.

Besides, he’s going forty above the speed limit.

He needs to concentrate on the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, so, i know this part was short. his next chapter will be longer.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is derek's pov. i considered making this one stiles and picking up right where the second chapter left off but i decided to just keep it every other, so...

After he bites the wolf Isaac, they are hesitant to come into his room.

He knows that they do not abandon him only because he can hear their heartbeats outside the door. Someone is always there, watching him, and it makes him angry. Being watched reminds him of the first few days he had spent with the other humans, when they had kept him either chained to a wall or to a stake driven in the ground. They had never allowed him to be alone, but instead had always made sure that one person was kept on watch.

They never spoke to him.

They just stared.

And stared.

And stared.

___

Sometimes, he wants to hurt them when he can hear them outside his room. He wants them to understand that he doesn't like it, but he cannot maul them through a door. The door, however, does not mean that he can't interact.

He learns that if he rushes at it, roaring so loud that it hurts his own ears, whoever is outside will startle. The first time he does it to the human girl, she screams, and he drops to the ground with his hands clapped over his ears.

He decides making her scream is a very bad idea.

___

It is amusing to scare the others.

After the first couple of times, though, it gets more difficult and becomes something of a game. It is not what he had intended when he started, but it is his only source of amusement, so he keeps on with it.  
_

He does not play the game when the human boy is outside the door, because the human boy never startles.

The first time he tries, Stiles only laughs, and his heartbeat remains the same.

“You don’t scare me, Derek,” Stiles had said. “You haven’t been able to in a long time.”

The human boy is confusing.

___

There are nights that he spends trying to sleep on the elevated mat they set up in his room. It is soft, much nicer than the cold cement floor, but the shape of the bed does not allow him to curl up very comfortably. 

He ends up angry at it, bites into the soft mat until it rips and bleeds a strange white substance that he shies away from. 

When the human boy comes into his room (for the first time) with food the next day, he sees the carnage and lets out a weary sigh.

“Derek,” is all he says on the exhale, but there is disappointment in his tone.

He does not understand the boy’s disappointment. The boy is not allowed to feel any way towards him, because he owes the boy nothing.

___

Sometimes, though, he looks at the stars when the rest of the world is very very quiet and that part of him that spends too much time fighting tells him that he owes the boy everything.

___

It is on his twentieth day that they open the door, filing inside while he watches them warily from his corner. The human boy holds a leash in his hand and that makes him snarl harder, because he understands the purposes of a leash, and he does not agree with it.

“Derek,” Stiles says and he does not know why, but he stops growling. “I’m not going to hurt you, okay? I would never hurt you, you know that,” the boy says, moving forward slowly. 

He allows the movement, until Stiles reaches out to place the collar and leash around his neck. Then, he jerks back, snapping at the boy’s wrist and he would have connected, if it was not for the boy alpha.

Scott’s eyes flash red as he pulls Stiles back and snarls, long and low, until he presses his belly to the ground and whimpers. Scott huffs at him before he clips on the leash and jerks it so hard that he gags.

Stiles smacks him then, yanking the leash back. “Don’t be an asshole,” he mutters.

He doesn’t know what asshole means, but he does know that the human boy is protecting him, and it makes him feel odd.

No one has bothered to protect him before.

___

That is a lie, he later realizes, when he is pacing in his room, waving his head back and forth to try and clear the pain.

His vision suddenly fails him, and he is captivated by images of those that saved him. The pictures move quickly in his mind, as if someone is rushing to show them to him, but they are his own pictures so it does not matter how fast they move, he can see.

He can see the girl Kira, standing beside him with her sword drawn, not facing him but away, staring down an enemy he does not remember, but knows they shared. 

He can see the wolves, even the one with the blue eyes (Uncle Peter, his mind supplies, but there is no fondness despite the familial connection), standing before a pack that dared to intrude upon his home.

Mostly, he can see the human boy, sometimes swinging a bat, or driving with his hands tight around the steering wheel and sometimes...sometimes, he can see his face in a mirror, twisted up in disgust, his own claws pointed at his flesh, only to be pulled down by the human’s firm grip.

___

They bring him to the man they call Deaton and he only allows the man to examine him because something tells him that, if he tries to hurt Deaton, the man will do horrible horrible things to him.

Usually, when the humans talk, he drowns them out. Their words are of no interest to him. Today, however, he listens.

“Is there anything you can do for him?” Stiles asks, his voice tinged with a desperation that he thinks he could feel if he reached out for it.

“There is magic that I can use to fix his mind,” Deaton confirms. “But it could break him even further. It’s best that we allow his mind to heal itself.”

“So he will heal?” Isaac cuts in.

Deaton does not answer the question.

___

He cannot sleep after the visit. His head throbs and it annoys him, makes him want to claw at his own flesh, and he whines in distress until he hears the human boy approaching the door.

“Derek,” Stiles says and he can hear him sitting down. “Deaton told us that we should make you recognize humanity. He said to call you by your name, but I don’t think a name is all there is to a person, not really. I mean, I could call you Sir Charlesworth Fuzzington or I could call you Derek, but either way you still wouldn’t like the sound styrofoam makes when it’s rubbed together.”

Unconsciously, he creeps closer to the door, until he is curled up next to it. 

“I remember once,” Stiles laughs, “you found Scott and Isaac hiding outside your loft, rubbing blocks of it together, and you got so mad you ripped it apart with your teeth.”

Stiles falls silent and he thinks that the boy fell asleep, but then he speaks again, in a voice so soft he barely hears it.

“I’m scared you won’t come back to me. But I still love you, so you’re not allowed to not come back, okay? You’re not allowed to be like this forever.”

___

If he could apologize, he would.

But even though he sometimes feels like his body is healing bits of himself that he cannot see, words do not come to him. 

He tries to speak, when he cannot hear heartbeats outside his door, but his fangs always get in the way, or his tongue is too clumsy to form the delicate sounds.

Frustration leads to him gouging marks in the wall until his claws bleed.

___

Nature would demand that a werewolf would wear down their claws if they tried to spend their entire night ripping holes into walls, but nature also demands that werewolves die when swords are thrust into their abdomen and twisted sharply.

Werewolves do not obey nature’s demands.

___

They give him a mirror.

He doesn’t know why, and he avoids it after the first time he sees himself. He does not like the way his eyes constantly shine blue or how his fangs constantly protrude out of his mouth. He knows that isn’t right, even if he can’t remember what color they are supposed to be, or how his teeth are supposed to sit.

They place the mirror on the wall, nailed in by the alpha Scott and Isaac, but he knows that, if he wanted to, he could still rip it straight out of the wall. He considers it when he sits on the new mattress they also gave him, knees drawn up to his chest so he can wrap his arms around his legs. He thinks that it would upset them, though, and while he does not really give a shit about how the majority of them feel, he does not want to upset the human boy.

___

He lets the mirror stay.

___

Isaac has not delivered him anything by himself since the night he was bitten, and so it takes him by surprise when the wolf enters his room alone.

“I brought pizza, with extra cheese, because you’re tastes are super fucking bland,” Isaac says. His voice trembles, betraying his attempt at calm.

He watches Isaac sit on the bed from the farthest corner. He wants to apologize for biting the wolf, because guilt sits heavy on his shoulders, but he cannot control the words. He decides to show his apology by sitting on the bed next to Isaac instead. The wolf keeps the pizza box between them, as some type of barrier, and stares at him with wide eyes until he reaches into the box, fingers clumsily grabbing a piece.

He stares at it for a long time, unable to figure out how to eat it, until Isaac laughs quietly.

“It’s not a puzzle,” Isaac says, lifting his own piece to his mouth.

He copies the wolf and wishes he could explain that everything is a puzzle to him right now.

___

“I still can’t believe you ate pizza with Isaac,” Stiles says, pushing his door open. “Oh, and I brought you these,” Stiles adds, holding up clothing. He can recognize it as his clothing, although he can also smell Stiles on it, and he wonders if these were lost in the boy’s own territory. 

“I figured you’d be tired of wearing the same old thing,” Stiles explains, gesturing at the pajama bottoms they had dressed him in when he first arrived. “Plus, these are actually yours, so they’ll fit instead of stopping above your ankle like some kind of hipster.”

He thinks he should feel odd, allowing the boy to help him undress, but he can’t bring himself to feel any discomfort. They move together like they have done it before and it makes something inside of him sad.

“There. Now you look handsome,” Stiles says when they are done and he stands in a pair of sweatpants and an oddly comfortable red sweater.

He looks down at the sleeves and he cannot help but grin when he places his thumbs through the little thumb holes.

When he looks up, Stiles is smiling.

___

He wishes he knew how to say thank you.

___

He finds himself sitting in front of the mirror, forcing his lips to shape around words the human’s speak. He always grows irritated when he tries, but he forces himself to continue because he can hear them outside, watching him. For some reason, he wants to make them all proud, to show them that he was worth rescuing.

It is only when they are gone that he tries speaking for the first time.

His name sounds odd coming out of his own mouth, but he likes it better now that he can own it.

“Derek,” he whispers, when the building is quiet except for the hearts of Deaton’s overnight animal guests. “Derek.”

___

There are times when Derek cannot pronounce words and it makes him snarl at his own reflection, berating himself for his stupidity.

It is only when he trips over Stiles’ name that he roars, throwing himself at the mirror. He does not want to break that, though, so he howls and howls and claws at the floor until his claws bleed again.

___

Derek realizes, when he is lying curled up next to the door, listening to the human boy’s heartbeat as he sleeps, that it was not his claws that bled.

___

Human nails are much weaker than an animal’s claws.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stiles' chapter will be up by the end of tonight, i just have to fix a couple of things at the end.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i meant to post this last night, but then it got loud in the living room and then my mom told me to clean my room.
> 
> when i turned 18, i thought maybe my mom would let me realize my dream of having my closet on the floor of my room, but apparently not.

During the entire drive to Deaton’s, Derek stays quiet in the back seat, drifting in and out of consciousness. Stiles tries to avoid looking at him in the rearview mirror, because the sight of Derek’s thin frame, his face gaunt and eyes underlined with shadows, makes him want to turn the jeep back around and search through the entire building again to see if they had left anyone behind. He wants to get his hands on the people that had thought it was okay to do this, to transform Derek into something he doesn’t even recognize, and make them regret it.

Kira’s hand coming to rest on shoulder rips him from those fantasies and he looks at her to see that she is watching him with concern written on her face. 

She opens her mouth, obviously struggling to find words, before she drops her hand with a sigh. “He’ll be okay, Stiles,” she says, but she looks out the window when she speaks, and he doesn’t think she believes her own words.

___

It’s when they try to get Derek out of the jeep, and into the veterinary office, that he begins to struggle again. He lets Scott and Isaac manhandle him into a standing position, but it’s as soon as they start to move that Stiles notices the tensing of his muscles, the way his lips begin to faintly curl away from his teeth.

“Scott!” Stiles yelps, just as Derek begins to snarl again, doing his best to break away from Scott’s and Isaac’s grips. He manages to dig his claws into Scott’s shoulder and Stiles winces at the look of pain on his friend’s face.

Scott raises one hand and grabs the back of Derek’s neck, letting his own claws dig in. It becomes a staring match, for just a few moments, but all it takes is for Scott to flash his eyes with a low growl and Derek releases him, whining. When Scott removes his claws, blood slowly runs down Derek’s neck, adding to the gore and dirt from before.

Stiles isn’t aware he’s staring at the three of them until Scott speaks.

“It’s fine, he’ll be fine. Just open the door, Stiles.”

He nods numbly, moving to do as he was asked. 

When the three of them move past him, Derek stops growling in the back of his throat to stare at him. Under normal circumstances, Stiles’ wouldn’t be unnerved, but there’s a lack of recognition in Derek’s eyes that makes him want to scream. 

___

“He’s feral,” Deaton says, after injecting Derek with a sedative that hasn’t knocked him out, but he’s lying very still on the examination table so...close enough.

Deaton had forced Kira and Isaac to wait outside when it was clear that their presence only increased Derek’s agitation. It still felt crowded with only him and Scott left to stand around the table. 

“How do you fix it?” Stiles asks and Deaton looks up at him.

“It’s complicated.”

“Everything’s complicated,” Stiles snaps. He’s irritated by Deaton’s cryptic way of talking on a good day, so nobody can blame him for kind of wanting to punch the other man. 

“What do we do with him?” Scott interrupts. “I mean, we can’t bring him to the loft, and none of us can take him home. Not unless we’re harboring a death wish.”

“I have a room in the back. I’ve been prepared,” Deaton replies and Stiles’ eyes widen.

“You’ve been prepared?” he echoes. “You mean, you knew this could happen to one of them, someday, and you never bothered to tell any of us it was possible?”

He knows that even if Deaton had told them a werewolf turning feral was a possibility, it wouldn’t have stopped all of this from happening, but still. Maybe he wouldn’t have been so shocked when he saw Derek, if he knew that it could happen. Maybe they would all be a little more prepared, and they wouldn’t be left reeling. Maybe they could have made a plan.

Deaton looks at him in that calm way he’s taken to looking at one of them whenever they snap. It’s not a good calm, since he also manages to express a cold disapproval.

“There are a lot of things that can happen, Stiles,” Deaton says. “I don’t need to lay out every possibility of the universe.”

Derek begins to growl on the table again, the sedative obviously wearing off, and Stiles can’t stop himself from reaching out and running his hand through Derek’s hair, pausing to scratch by his ears. After they had begun their relationship, it had taken him less than a week to discover that Derek liked to have his hair played with. It made him calm, so calm that he sometimes fell asleep in the bath while Stiles washed his hair. 

Even feral, it still had the same effect, and Derek’s growling cut off as his eyes found Stiles’. They lock gazes, for just a few moments, but Derek makes a pleased noise in the back of his throat and closes his eyes.

Less than a minute passes before he falls asleep.

___

“You’re like the wolf whisperer,” Scott says as they quietly lay Derek out on the bed Deaton had set up in the back room. It looks uncomfortable, but Stiles knows that Derek doesn’t really need comfort. If he wants to sleep, he’ll sleep, never mind the location. 

“Is that really a surprise to you?” Stiles asks, because really. It’s not like he doesn’t spend pretty much every second of every day around wolves.

Scott gives him a half smile that disappears as soon as they slip out of the room (making sure to lock it behind them, although Stiles doesn’t see how that will stop Derek from breaking out if he really wants to).

“Are you going to be okay tonight?” Scott asks.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be fine,” Stiles lies and his heart doesn’t even skip a beat. He’s gotten too good at this. “You go home, get some sleep. We all need it.”

Scott’s look of concern doesn’t disappear and he should have known that even if he’s gotten good at lying to wolves, he can never lie to Scott. He’s thankful for the fact that they at least know each other, that they can recognize when the other needs to be alone, because all Scott does is pull him in for a quick hug.

“Pick me up in the morning, okay? We’ll cut class, come hang out here,” Scott says when he pulls back. 

“Thought you had a big history test,” Stiles says and Scott snorts.

“Right, because world history is totally more important than being here.”

It is, Stiles thinks, if you’re trying to raise a grade point average that’s been slipping thanks to a bunch of werewolf shit so you can have a single chance at going to college. Which is exactly what Scott is trying to do. But he doesn’t protest, because he’s selfish, and he doesn’t want to come here alone.

___

Driving home, he tells himself that he didn’t beg Deaton to allow him to stay because surely he would’ve said no and then Stiles would be left breaking Deaton’s rules and jeopardizing their somewhat fragile relationship. 

He knows that’s bullshit, though, because Deaton wouldn’t have said no. 

He didn’t stay because he’s scared, and he hates himself for feeling that way, but he can’t help it.

He’s afraid of Derek.

___

He ends up pulling over.

His hands start to shake too bad for him to drive and he doesn’t want to die tonight. 

He stares out the windshield without really seeing, playing the events of the night over and over in his mind. He tries not to focus on the images of Derek hanging in chains, of the way he had trembled when they approached while still trying to appear even remotely threatening, but of course what he tries to avoid is exactly what his mind will bring up.

Stiles ends up tilting his head back like Derek had once told him to when the nightmares wouldn’t stop coming.

___

“My mom told me to lie back and think of happy things when I had nightmares,” Derek says, when they are lying in bed together and Stiles skin is covered in a cold sweat. “It’s silly, and it sounds really simple, but I don’t know...it helps.”

“Even for the heavy stuff?” Stiles asks weakly.

Derek is quiet for a long time and when he speaks again, he sounds like he’s in confession.

“After the fire, I would wake up with the taste of ash in my mouth. And it hurt, to think about happy things, but it helped. When you fall asleep thinking about all the times your dad made you laugh, or how proud you felt the first time you held your baby sister and she stopped crying...it’s hard to be sad.”

Stiles still doesn’t think it works, but he tries it anyway. 

He falls asleep thinking of his mother before and doesn’t wake up for the rest of the night.

___

 

“We found Derek,” Stiles tells his father over breakfast and the Sheriff pauses in the middle of lifting a spoonful of oatmeal to his mouth.

“When did that happen?”

“Last night,” Stiles says, and because he’s tired of lying to his father he adds, “Scott and I are skipping today. We’re going to go see him.”

He waits for some kind of protest, but the Sheriff just nods and continues eating. It’s when they’re setting their dishes in the sink that the Sheriff speaks again.

“Is he okay?”

“No,” Stiles says.

“Are you okay?”

He doesn’t want to say no, because saying no is an invitation to discuss the emotional baggage he’s been dragging around and he’s not really in the mood for that, so he does the easy thing.

He leaves.

__

Derek spends over an hour pacing back and forth, never looking away from the door. Stiles is barely aware of Scott standing next to him as he watches, waiting for something that will show his Derek is still there.

“What if we can’t fix him?” Stiles asks.

“We’ll fix him,” Scott says, in that tone of voice he uses when he’s set his mind to something. It should be comforting, because Scott has wonderful follow through when it comes to saving people, but how do you save someone from themselves? 

__

Derek never said he hated himself, but he never had to.

It showed whenever he refused to look in mirrors for longer than he absolutely had to. 

It showed when he refused to speak of any of his accomplishments, because he didn’t think they actually existed.

It showed every time he ignored compliments and ducked away from tender touches that he didn’t think he deserved.

Stiles wonders if Derek would even want to come back.

__

“Are you giving up?” Scott asks after he confesses those thoughts over peanut butter sandwiches in Deaton’s waiting room.

“No,” Stiles says quickly, because he’s not. He would never give up. “It’s just...hard,” he finishes. He doesn’t know how else to explain himself. 

“Yeah, it is. It’s gonna be,” Scott adds. “But it’s Derek, so it’s worth it, isn’t it?”

Stiles doesn’t have to answer that.

Of course it is.

___

It’s only two days later that Isaac comes into Scott’s room with a still healing wound on his hand.

“What happened?” Scott demands, grabbing for Isaac’s wrist. He pulls the other teen closer and looks at the bite (it’s clearly a bite) with his brow furrowed. “Did he…”

“It’s healing,” Isaac says, pulling his hand back. He looks at Stiles, and though he looks as tired as they all have been looking since the Nogitsune and Allison and now this, he looks a little excited too. “I went in his room. I talked to him. He didn’t say anything, of course, but after he, you know, bit me, he looked...sad.”

“Well, duh. He bit you,” Stiles says.

“Stiles, you know that him, feral him, whatever. That part of him doesn’t do sad. It’s just angry,” Isaac adds, grinning slightly as he continues on. “He’s going to come back.”

___

Isaac is right.

Stiles knows that he’s right, even if he sometimes feels really pessimistic about the entire situation, but he finds he can’t bring himself to go into Derek’s room the first time he stands outside.

He knows it’s selfish, because Lydia had found a snippet of something in a dusty old book, something about reconnecting the wolf with humanity and what is more human than love?

(It’s totally cheesy, he knows, but he is allowed to have cheesy thoughts).

He can’t stand the idea of Derek looking him without recognition, though. They have been strangers before, and that time has passed. 

He doesn’t want to repeat it again.

___

“You don’t scare me, Derek,” Stiles says after Derek launches himself at the door and even though it’s a frightening display, it’s the truth.

Everyone else may have been startled by Derek’s show, but he knows better. 

Derek looks at the door, brow furrowed in confusion.

“Try harder, maybe it’ll work next time,” Stiles cannot stop himself from saying.

__

Derek does not try to scare him again.

__

The first time he goes into Derek’s room, his heart is pounding in his chest. He doesn’t know what he expects, but he definitely didn’t think he would see the mattress they’d given him to be ripped apart. 

“Derek,” he sighs, and he cannot help the disappointment in his voice. He knows it’s unfair, to expect that Derek would be better so quickly, and it’s even more unfair to expect Derek to exist in this confusing place without giving in to some destructive urges. 

He sets the tray of food he’s carrying down in the middle of the room.

“I’ll be back,” Stiles says, before he leaves to get a broom.

___

Stiles has spent hours sitting outside Derek’s door with his back flat against it and his head tilted back, eyes closed while he listened to Derek pace on the other side. It’s only after they visit Deaton again that he starts to talk to Derek while he sits outside. 

He feels stupid, because neither of them can see each other, and it’s obviously a one sided conversation, but it makes him feel better. He knows Derek at least listens because the low, constant growl he makes whenever someone is near cuts off as soon as Stiles speaks. 

Some nights, he only talks for a short amount of time. Just long enough for Derek to be relaxed into sleep. He should be offended, that Derek sometimes falls asleep while he’s telling stories, but Derek doesn’t sleep anymore.

Not peacefully, at least.

But when he’s curled up next to the door, he looks more at ease than Stiles has seen him look this entire time. 

___

There are nights where he talks until his throat is sore, and then he just chugs a glass of water and talks more. 

On those nights, he usually rants about whatever’s happening outside of all the usual supernatural fuckery. He cries, once, tells Derek, “Sometimes, I’m walking around and I’m still not sure I’m me. I’m not sure it’s all real. I just feel so disconnected, you know?” 

Derek whines on the other side of the door then and Stiles is tempted to open it, to slip inside and actually sit with the other man.

He gets up and leaves instead.

___

“You should start going in there with him more,” Lydia tells him when they’re sitting together in his living room, watching some stupid tv show.

“I do go in there,” Stiles says.

“I meant outside of bringing him food. Go sit with him, Stiles. You know he doesn’t charge at the door anymore? And Isaac actually ate pizza with him. He didn’t do anything. He’s getting better,” Lydia says. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

Stiles wants to tell her that he’s not afraid, that he never was, but he doesn’t.

That would be a lie.

__

Can anyone blame him, for being a little bit afraid of a feral werewolf with the ability to rip his limbs from his body?

___

(Yes, he can blame himself). 

___

But, really, he ate pizza with Isaac.

Stiles snorts as he pulls the clothes that Derek had once left out from under his pillow. He had slept with them, after Derek had been missing for a month and he knows it’s pathetic, but fuck. There had been nights after his mom died, and before his dad packed up her clothes, that he laid on the ground in her half of the closet. It had smelt like her perfume, and he had closed his eyes and pretended that she was still there. That everything was okay.

Sleeping with Derek’s clothes had brought the same soft of comfort.

He doesn’t need them anymore, though, because Derek is back. 

And if he can handle eating pizza with Isaac, who Derek had been arguing with before he was taken, then he can fucking sit with Stiles and he’ll learn to love it.

___

“I should not feel this emotional over seeing him in his own clothes,” Stiles says, sitting on Derek’s bed with Scott next to him.

Derek is in the corner, staring at himself in the mirror. He had avoided it when they had first nailed it up (and Stiles isn’t even sure which one of them had suggested getting Derek one, or if anyone even had), but now, Stiles can’t help but think Derek’s developing a love affair with his own reflection.

“You’re allowed to be emotional,” Scott says, making Stiles look over at him. “I’d even let you cry on me right now, if you wanted. You could use my shirt as a kleenex.”

“That is...oddly sweet of you.”

Scott grins. “Yeah, I know. But don’t actually wipe your nose on my shirt. My mom just bought it for me.”

___

He knows that he should go home.

He has to go to school the next day, and it’s late, but he can’t bring himself to move. Not when Derek’s curled up on the bed next to him, eyes shut and his face relaxed in sleep.

Stiles brings his hands up, runs his fingers through Derek’s hair.

“We have to give you a trim again. Getting a little long,” Stiles murmurs. 

Derek shifts in his sleep, stretching one arm out so it hangs over the edge of the bed. It looks really uncomfortable, but that isn’t what Stiles focuses on. What he can’t look away from is the sight of Derek’s nails.

Bloody, and ragged, like he’s been wearing them down but, for the first time, completely human.

Stiles smiles and grabs for Derek’s other hand, holding it tight in his own now that he can without having to be careful about his claws.

“Glad you’re coming back to us,” Stiles says, holding on tight.

Derek doesn’t stir.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> monday and tuesday are my days off. so, i might update soon again, or i might have a lot more to do with my other fic than i thought and this one will wait until friday.

**Author's Note:**

> i felt like trying to write feral derek and i think i just ended up with someone that is very much caught in between being completely feral and being, well, more human. oh well, it's fun to write when i'm feeling too angry to write other fic.


End file.
